A Homeschooler's Pensieve: I AM WINDOWS. I AM PERFECT.

Thursday, September 4, 2008

I AM WINDOWS. I AM PERFECT.

WARNING: SPOILERS!

I saw the Star Trek Original Series (the remastered version, technically) episode "The Changeling" lately, in which the Enterprise encounters a computer probe designed to destroy, or "sterilize," all that is imperfect. Being impervious to everything they have to throw at it, Kirk and his crew manage to survive for a while because the probe thinks Captain James Kirk is Jackson Roykirk, its one-time creator. However, Nomad, the probe, eventually learns that although Kirk is his creator, he is also an imperfect "biological unit." Just when Nomad deactivates the ship's life support, Kirk finds a way to defeat the computer. He reveals Nomad's mistake of his identity, and that, coupled with the errors that Nomad did not recognize its mistake nor correct it by "sterilization," compelled the machine to eradicate itself on the grounds that it was imperfect.

Nomad didn't do this easily, of course. Its voice generators went screwy and it kept repeating "ERROR ... ERROR...." This made me think of the computers we have today, about how crummy they can be. Specifically, I found myself wondering how long it took people in the Star Trek universe to get past such annoyances as we have today. I can just imagine a Windows Nomad: "I AM WINDOWS. I AM PERFECT." And then Kirk convinces it to destroy itself: "PROCESSING. ESTIMATED TIME REMAINING: 3 MINUTES ... 6 MINUTES ... .73 HOURS.... WINDOWS REQUESTS USER VERIFICATION."

Don't beam the thing into deep space to explode, Kirk, beam it to Bill Gates' office.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: Very, very funny! Thanks for the good laughs.

And guess what?! I actually remember watching that episode when it was televised!; 4/9/08 23:45

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